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Potts Law Firm, a plaintiffs personal injury firm in Houston, opened an office in Dallas on Tuesday and hired three partners from the Dallas-based trial firm Cooper & Scully.

Micah Dortch and Maryssa Simpson joined the firm in Dallas, and Christopher Lindstrom joined in Houston.

The new Dallas office comes just months after Potts Law Firm expanded into Florida with an office in Orlando.

Dortch said Cooper & Scully is a great firm, but his plaintiffs work has increased over the last several years and defense firm Cooper & Scully isn’t a good fit for that work. He said he wasn’t running into conflicts at Cooper & Scully, but he felt like potential clients on the plaintiff’s side were sometimes reluctant to hire him because he worked at a firm with a strong reputation as a defense firm.

Dortch said that he, Simpson and Lindstrom work together on litigation matters.

Derek Potts

Dortch also said he met Potts’ managing partner Derek Potts by chance a year ago when they were both hunting in Argentina, and ran into him again at a hearing on Hurricane Harvey-related litigation in Houston last fall. Potts is one of the lawyers selected to lead litigation alleging involuntary takings, filed on behalf of individuals and businesses who own property that was flooded after water was released from two reservoirs during Hurricane Harvey.

Potts could not immediately be reached for comment on the lateral hires and the opening of the new office in north Texas.

Dortch said he is looking forward to learning the business model of a plaintiffs personal injury firm. Over the last few years at Cooper & Scully, Dortch said, about half of his work has been on contingency and the rest on a billable-hour basis.

Brent Cooper, a shareholder at Cooper & Scully, said of the lawyers’ departures, “we wish them well in their new endeavors.”

Cooper & Scully is well-known in Texas, but the firm received national attention in 2017 when senior attorney Rachel Lindsay, daughter of U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay of Dallas, starred on the reality TV show “The Bachelorette.”

In addition to Houston and Dallas, Potts Law Firm has offices in Kansas City, Kansas; Albuquerque; Orlando; and Little Rock.

Brenda Sapino Jeffreys

Senior reporter Brenda Sapino Jeffreys covers the business of law in Texas. Contact her at bjeffreys@alm.com On Twitter: @BrendaSJeffreys

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